How do you determine how much to spend on speakers

Krazeeyk; Charlie (Danvetc), Tedmitz and Clueless above give good advice. Clueless is only wrong in thinking nobody will agree with him.

Speakers are the least accurate hifi component (leaving phono cartridges out of the discussion since you say you are not interested in analog). The character of a hifi system is influenced more by speakers, since they have more character than the other components in the system. At the same time, there are a lot of budget priced amps and cd players out there that do a very good job, e.g., the NAD amp mentioned by Clueless.

You should listen to as many speakers as your patience allows, and pick the one, for up to say 60-70% of your budget, that sounds as close to real life as you can get. That said, there are some good choices for 30-50% of your budget.

Charlie and I have Harbeth Compact 7's. (His is cosmetically a little different and called the 7ES.) Without being able to hear them, but having experience with other Harbeth speakers, I bought mine on the basis of information and advice I received from one of my favorite writer/reviewers, Professor Greene ("REG" in The Absolute Sound) who Charlie mentions. (You can ignore Natalie's silliness above as it seems to confuse Charlie's recommendaton of dvd player and dac with REG's recommendation that you should put most of your money in speakers.) This does not mean I think you should order Harbeth speakers. They may not be right for you. I think you should go out and listen to a lot of speakers.

There was an Absolute Sound issue a few years ago (actually 1993), in which the reviewers recommended systems. At the $5,000 level, one recommended the Vandersteen 2CE mentioned by someone above, at about 30% of the total system price. One recommended the Spica Angelus at about the same price. And Professor Greene recommended spending 50% of the budget on a pair of Spendor 1/2 speakers (that's one, version 2, not one-half). That was before the Harbeth Compact 7 came out and before Professor Greene heard them, so today, he might say listen to both and buy either one. The point is his advice was the same as Charlie, Ted and Clueless above.

You can hear the Vandersteens and Spendors someplace in the LA area. The Harbeths are not carried by anyone yet and I don't think anyone even has a demo pair.

Spend as much as you need to to get speakers you can live with for a long time. Get inexpensive electronics to drive them with, but get advice before you buy any inexpensive electronics. Generally, the LA area hifi dealers can help you choose.

The balanced approach recommended above is sure to reward the dealers with whom you do business, because every component will be improved with an upgrade. Better to have speakers that will reward you for every upgrade you make.

If you want some more specific help about where to start you search in SoCal, feel free to email me.

Another thought. All the posts above are about different points of view. Do you remember the song that went, "If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife . . . So from my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you." The audiophile equivalent of an ugly girl is a minisystem from the Good Guys. Go buy a Denon M30 or the Yamaha Pianocraft, and forget about all this nonsense.

The road to perdition. See my second post above. Your questions touch on the subjects of many many threads here. There are no answers, only opinions. But I will tell you this: it's a bad idea to try to make up for one component's deficiencies by matching it with another's.

Many a story has been told here of someone having a system, preamp 1, amp 1, cdp 1, speakers 1, and then "upgrading" it to preamp 2, amp 2, cdp 2, speakers 2, and then again and again, only to find that in reconnecting amp 1 (which he had stored in a closet) to preamp 5, cdp 5 and speakers 5, the sound was much better.

Go find speakers that you like and can live with. Ask the local hifi dealers for help in selecting inexpensive electronics to drive them and a competent cd player.

Or, go to the Good Guys and buy one of those little minisystems.

Paul

S2k- didn't you just say in another thread that you regret selling your meridian 508.24? Whyever for if you can't tell the difference?

About the Sony ES cd players, I couldn't disagree more. Go buy the Cambridge, a NAD, a Phillips, Rotel, Denon, just about anything else. The Xa7ES was fine and used is a good buy, and I even have a very old 508ES that was pretty smooth, but at $500 you're talking XA20ES. I had one for a short while. Maybe it was defective, but it sounded off-pitch, like a 33 1/3 rpm lp spinning at 34 rpm. Very lively and exciting - but not accurate. I don't know how you get a cd player to do that - those guys at Sony are wizards.

Paul

Kraz, now you're in the treacherous realm of matching components with sonic signatures. At their price points, the Bryston and the Rotel have been well reviewed and praised by people here. If you like the sound of the Bryston, however, there is a less expensive 3bST (I doubt seriously you'd miss the little bit of extra power- tho sonically they may be more different than I assume) and a more expensive Rotel cd payer, the 991. From what I have read, the 991 is worth the extra couple of hundred bucks over the 771. There are other good choices at the same general price point, e.g., the Musical Fidelity A3.

I would not skimp on the cd player. Less money in the amp and more in the cd player is usually safer.

W/re the speakers, I hope you can get a good deal. Retail's pretty high. (I like them better than the B&W's too, so imo you're on the right track - but others would disagree, I'm sure). If you have the time, try to listen to some of the other suggestions above, e.g., Spendors, Vandersteens. I do not have either of them, but I think you'll like them too.

In addition to accurate (or pleasing if you prefer) tonality, listen to how well the speakers do at imaging (three-dimensional solid performers in real space), soundstaging (depth and width and placement of the performers in an acoustic environment), and dynamics (responses to large and tiny changes in amplitude - realistic? clean?).

Here's a suggestion: start another thread or two. Ask people in one to recommend a $5,000 system. You'd get all sorts of real world examples. In the other, if you're set on those speakers, or choose different speakers, ask people who have them what they use for amplifiers and cd player.

Take your time and have fun.

Paul

Well, S2k, if it sounded like I think the cdp is more significant than the amp, then I disagree with me too. Biggest change in sound in my system was when I went from a midfi receiver to a hifi amp. I certainly wouldnt recommend getting an inferior amp. It's just that there are good amps that don't cost a lot of money, like the Bryston 3bST or the Muse 100 and 160. Lots of others, as well as some integrateds that cost even less and I wouldnt consider them inferior.

I do think, however, that there are audible differences in cd players under $2k, and from my pov, it's easier to find an acceptable amp than it is to find an acceptable cd player.

That was another thread, which component is more important, with some people saying speakers, others source, some preamps and a few amps.

This is starting to sound like the choice between "scrimp" and "skimp" - doesn't make a lot of difference.

"unlikely that a $5k system will have the resolution for the cdp to matter very much" - wow, are you ever a high end marketer's dream.

I think you would get lots of disagreement over that statement. Put Harbeth speakers in the mix along with a good integrated amplifier or used pre and basic, and you could tell the difference between, e.g., a $1,000 retail Denon and a Sony (which are really very close).

With a $550 real world price NAD integrated and $2200 Harbeth Compact 7 speakers, I would pair a $2000 used meridian 508.24, and believe me, you could tell the difference, even with Radio Shack interconnects and zip cord.

In fact, Kraz, if you're still around, that's the system I'd recommend. (Actually if you email me, I'll tell you where to get better interconnects in L.A., for cheap - I wouldnt use the Radio Shack)

I'm not trying to convince you S2k, just trying to help the author of this thread understand the issues so he can decide for himself. We apparently agree that speakers are very important - more important than cdps. We also agree that amps are important. Where we disagree is on the amount of $ it takes to get a good amp, secondly, on the benefit of spending more $ on cd players, and finally, on the amount of $ it takes to come up with a system that is capable of revealing subtle differences between components.

I think to say "you are still not getting it" is a bit rude. You may have more money than I have, but I doubt that you have any years on me. It is certainly true, however, that I dont "get" those two seemingly contradictory statements -"the benefits of spending $2k versus $500 on a cdp are insignificant" versus you regret selling your meridian 508 ($3995 last list but used value now $2k or so - I paid $2200 for a demo unit). I can't undertand why you regret selling it if you can replace it for $500. - But that's ok, you don't need to explain, I don't need to know.

We also disagree on the benefit of spending more than about $2200 on speakers. Kraz asked above about diminishing returns, and that's where it kicks in for me, the cost of Harbeth Compact 7's or Spendor 1/2's. I don't think you get "better" speakers for less than $5,000. And then, they may not be better for a small, real world, room. The Harbeth Monitor 40's are over $6,000, but need a large room.

The reason speakers are so easy to tell apart is that they are more colored, less accurate, than, say, cdps. It is easy to distinguish sonic signatures. That does not mean that the more expensive speaker is better than the cheaper one. It just means they sound different. To a lesser extent (by far) the same is true for amps.

CD players, otoh, do not have as obvious sonic signatures. Their differences are more related to quality and are more subtle. It takes an experienced ear. In fact, to the vast majority of music lovers, who are not audiophiles of course, bits are bits and one cd player is as good as the next. Perfect sound after all.